Woke up in the Knights Inn, Conway, Arkansas, and sat on my glasses...

Stopped in Clarksville and researched the “Arkansas Traveler” at the University of the Ozarks. Van Buren, a national historic district and home of Bob “Bazooka” Burns, the Butterfield Stage once passed through from St. L to S.F. Fort Smith, home of Brig. Gen. William Orlando Darby,
leader of Darby’s Rangers, 34 when killed in Italy; Hanging Judge Ike
Parker based here from ~1875-1895; also where 1100 wagons left for ‘49
gold rush. Crossed the OK border at 2 P.M. and stopped at the state’s Taj Ma Privy (tourist information center). Headed to the Akins cemetery where Pretty Boy Floyd is buried; a mile or two down the road at Skin Bayou is the 1829 cabin where Sequoyah
(1770?-1843), inventor of the Cherokee sylabry, lived after relocating
here from Tennessee; he died in Mexico and was buried in an unknown
cave. In Sallisaw,
ate a chicken-fried steak at Lessley’s Cafe, run by Pretty Boy’s
descendants; customer has 1931 clipping but said it’s “falling apart.”
Drove through the Cookson Hills, used as a hideout by Pretty Boy, Bonnie and Clyde, and others. Saw a tarantula crossing the road and taken out by a semi; OK also has black widow and brown recluse (fiddleback) spiders.

... and camped at Tenkiller Lake, named for an Indian who went around with that many scalps attached to his belt. Millions of stars.

Location: about 25 miles east of Muskogee,
home of the Five Civilized Tribes Museum and the birthplace of jazz
greats Don Byas and Jay McShann (not Merle Haggard, who grew up in
California).

Second day:

From Cherokee Landing to Chandler.

Packed up my tent in the dark and headed north to Tahlequah,
capital of the Cherokee Nation, and ranked 55th best small town in
America by Prentice-Hall, then west towards Claremore and Tulsa. Before
dawn in tiny Hulbert, a rooster stood crowing in the middle of the road, oblivious to traffic. Stopped in Pryor
at Jack and Wanda’s Country Cafe where a full-blooded Cherokee served
me sausage and eggs complete with home fries, biscuits and gravy, and
coffee. Continuing on 20 to Claremore (“Geared for the Future”), I get my first glimpse of the fabled Route 66;
sadly, at the junction is a Carl’s Jr. There are 400 miles of original
66 roadbed in OK. The highway was completed in 1926. According to
National Geographic’s David Lamb the highway, running 2,500 miles from
the corner of Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago to Ocean
Avenue in Santa Monica (and “don’t forget Winona”), evokes the era “when
life seemed forever and all things were possible.” For diehard fans, 66
has its own museum in Clinton, 100 miles west of OKC. For the record,
the Mother Road (as Steinbeck called it), now rendered all but obsolete
by faster-moving interstates, once crossed three time zones, eight
states, and hundreds of towns. Bobby Troup wrote “Route 66” in 1946 but
it was made famous by Nat “King” Cole.

Claremore is the home of Patti Page, who sang “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?” and “The Tennessee Waltz,” and of Lynn Riggs, author of Green Grow the Lilacs, which turned into Oklahoma! More importantly, it also the site of the Will Rogers
Memorial, a museum honoring the comedian, journalist, and adventurer
whom film producer Cecil B. DeMille once described as “the American who
least can be spared.” (Could the same be said of, say, Dan Rather?)

Continued west on 66 to Tulsa. Fixed my glasses at Eye Care and saw George Catlin’s Buffaloes at the Thomas Gilcrease Museum, built with oil money (the first oil derrick under the capitol in OKC) and now run by the city. Discussed Woody Guthrie
with the receptionist, who is from his hometown of Okemah (due south)
-- Smithsonian putting together traveling exhibit about him -- Guthrie
Foundation in NY, on 47th? She also told me about OK’s tramp poet Welborn Hope. Jim Thorpe from Yale, due west on State 51.

Heading southwest on 66, passed the School of the Holy Spirit and, a
few miles later, the Tulsa Welding School. Through Sapulpa, Bristow, Stroud (where Henry Starr’s gang robbed two banks at the same time), and Davenport (“Welcome to Our City/Not Too Big/But Real Pretty”).

Spent the night in Chandler
(“Pecan Capital of the World”) at the 1939-vintage Lincoln Motel (“Your
Home Away From Home”). After checking in, inspected the well-preserved
old Phillips 66 station, and the antiseptic,neon-lit new one;
$11-billion Phillips Petroleum is based in Bartlesville, to the
northeast near the Osage reservation.

Location: 70 mis. SW of Tulsa & 30 NE of OKC (130 to Lawton).

Third day

From Chandler to Norman.

Ate breakfast at Granny’s Country Kitchen, where a small table of men soon grew to a dozen or more. Browsed through the Lincoln County Historical Museum,
in the 1897-vintage Mascho-Murphy building, including a photo of
farmers with their mule teams building the 66 roadbed in the 1920s, and
another showing 20 men standing in front of a Pickwick bus making a stop
in El Reno on its way from St. Louis to Amarillo. Also an exhibit on Bill Tilghman,
buffalo hunter, Army scout, and Indian Territory marshall for 21 years
who served 21 years as a marshall in the Indian Territory, as well as an
Army scout and buffalo hunter. Many of Chandler’s buildings were wiped
out by 1897 cyclone.

Head south on 18 towards Seminole, stepping at the Carl Hubbell museum in Meeker.
A southpaw known for his screwball, “the Meal Ticket” pitched for the
N.Y. Giants in the 1930s. Cooperstown wanted his personal effects, but
Hubbell gave them to his hometown instead so that local kids could see
them for free. Headline in The Meeker News: “Man Arrested After
Allegedly Trying to Run Over His Wife.”

Crossed Interstate 40 to Shawnee’s Santa Fe Depot
(circa 1904, now a museum), where the Rock Island, Katy, and two other
lines once passed through. Lillian Gish lived here. I bought a piece of
roserock which was gathered nearby. It’s supposedly made from the blood
of braves and tears of maidens along the Trail of Tears.

Headed southeast on 270 to Seminole,
the home of Gusher Days, then south to Bowlegs (a chief’s name) and
east to Wewoka (meaning “barking water,” for a creek north of town).

Stopped at the Seminole Nation Museum
and read about Florida’s Seminole War, which lasted seven years.
Refusing to sign a treaty with the government, Chief Osceola (1804-1838)
and 500 others escaped into the Florida swamps -- Seminole means
“runaway” -- while the rest of the tribe moved to Oklahoma. Eventually
Osceola was captured and died on a fort in South Carolina; a small
number of his group’s descendants live on reservations in southern
Florida.

In front of the courthouse stands an old pecan (or walnut?) known as the Seminole Nation Whipping Tree
where minor offense were punished with 25 lashes across the bare back
with a 6-foot hickory switch, 50 for second offense, and death by firing
squad for major crimes. Prisoners were not jailed: “their code of honor
was such that they always appeared for sentencing.” Nearby is a bronze
replica of the Statue of Liberty, dedicated by the Boy Scouts in 1950,
which bears a striking resemblance to Laura Dern.

Continued south along the Seminole Nation Highway (59) to Sasakwa,
dusty and down-at-the-heels, where a young man on horseback rode up to
Booger Red’s Snak-Shak and borrowed a pinch of Skoal from a friend.

Drove on 39, west into the sun, thinking about hanging judges and
whipping trees. Past the Lake Konawa Recreation Area, smells like gas,
electric plant on other side; Vamoosa and Wolf turnoffs; pond with
egret; and through Maud, OK, home of rocker Wanda Jackson, who has a boulevard named after her. (“She doesn’t came back very often,” a local woman told me. “She sends a representative.”)

Near Tecumseh
(Shawnee chief and OK native?) drove past a baseball game straight out
of Norman Rockwell. Stopped at the Thunderbird Entertainment Center,
where people were playing Indian bingo, and bought an Absentee Shawnee
cap and some hot jerky.

Then to to the big city of Norman, where the convenience store clerk seemed grungy and bitter. Home of the University of Oklahoma,
known for its football team, six-time national champs. Hopped a few
bars, culminating at Sugar’s, where I saw a coed in a hot pink and green
thong strip to the tune of “Monster Magnet.”

Got a room at the Thunderbird Lodge of Norman.

Location: 15 mis. south of Oklahoma City.

Fourth day:

From Norman to Lawton.

Browsed books and photos in OU’s Western History Collections. Drove south through Purcell, the “heart” of OK on water tank. Saw my first (OK) longhorns. Through Maysville, home of aviator Wiley Post (town sign with his signature eyepatch), who perished with Rogers in Alaska plane crash. At Antioch,
passed Sanford & Son Polled Herefords (no relation to TV sitcom?)
and the Love Baptist Church (really, it belongs in Purcell); in Elmore City, First Baptist reassures that “Jesus Christ Is Alive and Well.” On 76 south to Fox: strange sculture garden with totems, gorillas, etc. Pumpjacks working overtime.

The Healdton
Oil Museum is ... closed! But I can read the historical plaque outside.
OK’s first state-regulated oil field, discovered August 1913. Principal
area was Ragtown (now called Wirt). Healdton Oilfield Days held in late August. Lady at antique store said Ragtown used to be pretty rough.

Drove a few miles west to Wirt,
named after oilman Wirt Franklin. Once consisted of canvas tents,
burned down several times, shotgun houses built in a day. Pumpjacks
pumping. Inside of Healdton Feed (only store in Wirt) dates to 1913,
same year oil discovered. A giant inflated fireant hangs from ceiling.
Cap collection includes “(I Can’t Believe I Ate) Just One Bite Rat &
Mouse Bait.” Ragtown still is pretty rough.

Headed west through Ringling,
so named because the famous circus once promised to make town its
winter camp, but then reneged, to this day it still invites residents to
OKC whenever the circus is in town.

Took out some food in Hastings, the counterpart of my N.Y. hometown.

Then I zigzagged towards Geronimo, a small town named after the Apache warrior where a Comanche pow-wow
happened to be taking place; the town is mostly white, some Comanche
live scattered around on land grants. The tribe is based nearby in
Medicine Park, 8 mis. north of Lawton; ten thousand Comanche live in the
U.S., 7,000 of them in OK.

Walked through the carnie and
frybread area to a large circle of spectators, in the middle was a small
circle, the musicians gathered around a single large kettle drum. Spoke
with Keith, a Blackfeet/Apache who is married to a Comanche, and to
Carol Cizik, a Comanche tribal business committee member, who invited me
to stay with her and husband Bernard, “as long as you don’t murder us.”

Invaded the inner circle and left my tape recorder. Later I found out
that one of the drummers had introduced each song, giving its title and
meaning.

Like the Navajo, the Comanche call themselves “the
People.” [Other tribes’ names for them?] Carol joked about the Kiowa and
about whites not being clean, she prefers Ten Bears to Quanah Parker,
the two most famous Comanche. The tribe’s medicine man is Thomas
Blackstar, Lawton. Julia Mehseet (sp.?) is in her nineties and still
rides a donkey to check cattle.

The Comanches were “Lords of
the Southern Plains.” From birth to death Comanche life was lived on the
move. “He is no sooner mounted than he is transformed,” B. Möllhausen
observed (1853). Some loved their horses more than their wives. They
were obligated to perform heroically and, rescuing their fallen
comrades, be the last to leave the field (“go down with the ship”).

After Carol and Bernard went home, Keith and I discussed the Native American Church.
During the all-night ceremony they take peyote and sit up all night in a
teepee; they use a gourd filled with pebbles gathered from sandhills.
It’s not religious but spiritual, they don’t focus on Jesus but talk to
God; Keith said the peyote doesn’t make him feel “high.” Whites are not
allowed, you need proof of Indian heritage.

Bought a cedar bead necklace -- for good luck -- which promptly broke.

Drove a few miles north to Lawton and checked into the Super 8 Motel/Sandpiper Inn, where I stayed for the next three nights.

Location: 100 mis. southwest of Oklahoma City.

Fifth day:

Lawton, home of Ft. Sill,
“Best Post in the Army” and Mecca for Field Artillerymen. Early
recruiting ad: “Yes-sir-ree MAN! The great open spaces are calling....”

Have arranged to meet Biff Joslin in Waurika at high noon. He is driving up from Fort Worth.

In the morning I went to the museum at Ft. Sill and visited the jail
of Geronimo (“There is no path left for us, except the whiteman’s
road”). He was brought here as a prisoner-of-war in 1894, and freed by
Congress in 1913 [1909?], after which he served as soldier and scout
[???].

Life of the frontier soldier: equal parts boredom and
hard work. The fort’s early cabins were patterned after Caddoan houses
in eastern OK and TX, also the Mexican “jacal.” Logs with charred ends
placed upright in trenches and chinked with mud or lime mortar, board
roof covered with canvas so as to be weathertight. The fort is enormous,
even has its own golf course, as well as three Apache cemeteries,
where Geronimo and three chiefs are buried. Pine cones placed on some
of the tombstones. Geronimo’s grave: pyramid of round stones, eagle on
top, no date, many festive handkerchiefs and feathers hanging from pine
tree, large gatherings here on Memorial Day, tents, food, etc.

Native Americans lived in 12 villages, built their own houses, fenced
the entire military reserve, dug water tanks, grew crops and raised
10,000 cattle.

Northwest of Ft. Sill is Cutthroat Gap, where in 1833 the Osage attacked the Kiowa, cut off their heads and put them in buckets.

Drive southwest through Comanche to Waurika and the Chisholm Trail Museum.
Jesse Chisholm never herded cattle but traded them and ran “chain
stores” along the trail named after him. Prior to railroads, cattle that
was worth $3 a head in Texas sold for $30-40 in Chicago and New York.
The 1,200-mile trip from Brownsville to Abilene, roughly parallel to
I-81, took four months. Other trails through OK included the Santa Fe,
Shawnee, Great Western, and Jones and Plummer. Trails declined with
advent of RR. Quanah Parker traded pecans for beef in Jefferson County
along Beaver and Cow Creeks.

Drove west to Duncan
to see a sculpture of the trail drive and stopped at the Moneka Antique
Mall & Haunted Tea Room in Waurika. Due north of Duncan is Marlowe,
home of the Outlaw Days Annual Ambush. The town has a gunfighters
association, and the high school football team is known as -- you
guessed it -- the Outlaws. It was named for the five Marlow brothers of
the late 1800s.

Met Biff and drove back to Lawton. Ate at Lee’s Cafe, “Home of the Navajo Indian Taco,” then headed north towards the Wichita Mountains.
Houses built of red rock and mortar, and mesquite fences around groves;
cattle “imported” mesquite from Mexico during drives. Had a longhorn
burger in Meers, after which we toured the Holy City
of the Wichitas. People camp out for two days to see the 2-hour Easter
Pageant, dating to 1926. In the wildlife refuge (set aside by McKinley
in 1901, it’s the country’s oldest managed preserve), we hiked along a
river bed searching for the Forty-Foot Hole, and drove within ten feet
of a bison -- so close that I couldn’t fit all of him into the camera’s viewfinder!

At night, went to an Apache Fire Dance in Apache,
north of Lawton, where we were the only palefaces. (The tribe is
actually based a few miles north, in Anadarko.) An older participant
collapsed (heat exhaustion?) but recovered. I bought a sachet of herbs
-- Indian perfume, worn behind the shoulder -- and a nickel silver pin,
an outstretched hand with star on palm signifying, the vendor
nonchalantly explained, that I had killed someone in hand-to-hand
combat.

Apache is the Zuni word for “enemy.” In the 14th
century, the tribe migrated south from the Pacific Northwest and crossed
the Rockies to the Southwestern and plains states.

We returned to the Super 8 in Lawton and drank some whiskey.

Location: 200 mis. south of Woodward, near the Panhandle.

Sixth day:

Lawton’s history: Mattie Beal of Wichita, Kansas, applied for a land
grant in El Reno, OK, approved 1907, deluged with marriage proposals,
chose south Lawton, had timber hauled to site a month before OK became
state. Lucky guy was one Charles W. Payne, part owner of a lumber
company in Lawton, died in 1931?

Back to Ft. Sill. Geronimo’s
jail, stables, etc. Myths about Geronimo’s escape, that he paced to wear
down the floor or starved himself to fit through the bars, are thought
to be untrue (the latter is based on Coacoochee in Florida). Nor did he
wear a coat made of 99 human scalps or commit suicide by jumping off
Medicine Bluff.

We visited the fort’s Missile Park, from Fort
McHenry’s “rocket’s red glare” through the Multiple Launch Rocket
System’s “steel rain (firing 12 rockets, each with 7,728 submunitions,
all in less than a minute, with a target area the size of a football
field -- now that’s smarts!) The 1983 Pershing III travels 1,118 miles,
strikes within 120 feet of its projected target, and prompted the (then)
Soviets to sign a nuclear treaty.

Colonels live in old stone
houses on fort’s quadrangle, sprinklers working overtime to earn best
yard of month of honors, fancy Comache club with red carpet asnd brass
railings.

The black “Buffalo Soldiers” of the 9th and 10th
Cavalry Regiments built the post guardhouse (aka Geronimo’s guardhouse
and Geronimo’s Hotel) in 1872. It once held soldiers, Indian leaders,
outlaws, even stray dogs. New facility erected in 1940. Geronimo was
confined here twice for drinking whiskey. He lived on a small farm NW of
the old post, built in the winter of 1869 by Gen. P.H. Sheridan “to
control tribes” of the Southern Plains. It was on the site of a former
Wichita Indian village.

Saw Geronimo’s well-worn saddle, his
Colt 45 revolver, and the bone-handled dagger he surrendered to Brig.
Gen. George Crook in 1886 (G. was 57). He was a warrior and medicine man
rather than a chief. His band conducted raids throughout the SW and
northern Mexico. After his release from Ft. Sill he served as a private
in the 7th Cavalry’s Troop L. Became a celebrity, sold bows and arrows,
walking sticks, and autographed photos at Wild West shows (such as
Pawnee Bill’s), fairs, and ceremonies. Photo of Quanah Parker
wolf-hunting with Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. “Item temporarily removed”
where brass camp bucket from Cutthroat Gap Massacre was once displayed.

Drove southeast to Commanche and had a foot-long chili dog at Dave’s
Diner (“Just Good Food”), then back to Healdton, “Hub of the Oilfield,”
pop. 2,872. South to Leon and the Red River, which runs along the southern border of Oklahoma, trying to find the bridge to Texas.
Saw a dust devil. 32 West to Rubbottom and Courtney and across the
Taovayas Bridge to the Lone Star State. Biff: “Look how much prettier it is on this side.”

Inspected headquarters of the Spanish Fort
Coon Hunters Association. The small town is site of the Taovaya’s 1759
victory over Spain. [Taovaya became Wichita?] Passed by a
100-million-gallon oil field in Montegue (sp.?) County. Through Nocona,
famous for its boots.

Back into Oklahoma, dined on catfish and calf fries at Doug’s Peach Orchard in Terral, named for a preacher who laid out the town.

Biff, my co-rambler, chauffeur, and drinking buddy, turns back.

Spent another night in Lawton at the Super 8.

Seventh day:

From Lawton to Watonga.

In the morning, spoke with the clerk at Super 8, whose husband retires
from military in 2 years, at age 40. They have two kids, have lived in
11 different houses over the past 8 years. “I don’t want to ramble,” she
said.

North to Apache. Feed Lot Cafe recommended for rough
characters. Styrofoam cup blowing down the street. Graffiti: “Tiger
(hearts) Rabbit ‘98.” Continued northeast to Anadarko,
“Indian Capital of the World,” where you can “Tour the Only Authentic
Indian City U.S.A.” as well as the South Plains Indian Museum and the
American Indian Hall of Fame. In August, the town hosts the weeklong
American Indian Exposition, the state’s largest tribal gathering. There
are six tribal complexes in and around Anadarko: Apache, Caddo,
Delaware, Kiowa, Fort Sill Apache, and Wichita. The post office features
16 murals by Kiowa artist Stephen Mopope, and there are over 100
buildings on the National Register for Historic Places. The town was
founded in 1901 when the surrounding Indian reservations were opended to
white settlement.

Drove through Cyril to Cement, passing more pumpjacks and windmills. Jesse James
used Buzzard’s Roost, 2 mis. east of Cement, as a hideout. “It’s been
so hot, I think they [the buzzards] died too,” the postmaster said.

Unknown road northeast (?) to Verden, through Mennonite country.

81 north to El Reno. Sat under a shade tree at Cindy’s Country Corner
in Pocasset. 37 west to Cogar and Hinton, home of OK’s oldest rodeo, the
Little Okie Restaurant, and the Sooner Superette (sign with a covered
wagon). Sign on 37: “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates” (are the
hitchhikers escaping from inmates or inmates who are escaping?)

Proceeding north on 37, soon after crossing Interstate 40, came to the Canadian River Bridge aka the Pony Bridge,
where Grandpa dies in the film version of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Four
thousand feet long with 38 pony trusses (small girders), completed July
1, 1933. To the east, Bridgeport Hill is so steep that Model A and T
drivers had to climb it backwards. (Sallisaw holds its Grapes of Wrath
Festival in October.)

To Geary, livestock auctions every Saturday. Nine miles to Jesse Chisholm’s grave site. Highway 81 Great Lakes to Gulf?

High-pressure gas pipeline, farming, and ranching not far from the grave. Gravestone: “Jesse Chilsholm/
Born...1805/ Died March 4, 1868 / No One Left His Home / Cold or
Hungry”; west side broken off; speckled stone, pink, white, and black --
quartz?

Chisholm: b. TN of Scottish/Cherokee descent, came to
Indian Territory in 1820s, 40yrs. operated trading posts near Asher,
Purcell, Watonga, and OKC; also guide, freighter, interpreter, salt
works owner, peacemaker; well-known by Indians; part of his freighting
route became known as the Chisholm Trail; died after eating bear meat
cooked in a copper kettle and buried near Left Hand Spring, on allotment
of his old friend Chief Left Hand, NE of Geary.

North on 281 through Greenfield. A nasty storm brewing, lightning, sun obscured by giant grey front. Approaching Watonga,
saw family walking out to highway, scanning the sky, children dancing
excitedly. Checked into a $28 “luxurious motel room” at the Western Inn
(“A Home Away From Home”).

Watonga is named after Arapaho chief Wantanga (Black Coyote) who founded it in 1892. Edna Ferber’s Cimarron
was based on her stay at Mrs. T.B. Ferguson’s 1907 home. Thomas Benton
Ferguson, b. 1851 in Des Moines, moved to OK in the 1890s, bringing his
family anmd a printing press. He published the Watonga Republican until
his death in 1921; was appointed sixth territorial governor in 1901 and
spearheaded statehood efforts. Also pressed for “herd law” requiring
land to be fenced, which was unpopular with ranchers.

The town has the only cheese factory in OK, with an annual festival in October.

Due north is Roman Nose State Park, where the Cheyenne and Arapaho
once sought refuge in a canyon. It’s named for Southern CHeyenne chief
Henry Caruthers (Roman Nose) who lived there in a teepee from 1887 until
his death in 1917, now it has cabins, camping and RV sites, restaurants
and stores, fishing dock, boat rentals, swimming pool, miniature golf,
tennis, airstrip.

Ate at the McBee Steak House. Tornado warning for Pawnee County, to the NE.

The Gideons Bible in my motel room was opened to Jeremiah 8, a passage
which could apply to the Okies: “I will surely consume them, saith the
Lord: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree,
and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall
pass away from them” (verse 13). From the New Oxford Annotated Bible:
“... there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the
leaves are withered....”

Watched a documentary on Roger Miller
of Erick, OK (due west), who wrote “Walkin’ In the Sunshine,” “Sing a
Little Sunshine Song,” “Engine Number Nine,” “Don’t Tear the Honky-Tonks
Down” and, last but not least, “King of the Road.”

Location: 100 miles southeast of Oklahoma’s Panhandle.

Eighth day:

From Watonga to Boiling Springs.

Humming Ferde Grofe’s “On the Trial” -- now somewhere between the
Chisholm and Santa Fe Trails. Due east in Kingfisher, upcoming display
of stone tools found in Panhandle. Grain elevators.

Heading
northwest on 3, then north on 58 to Eagle City, old depot with peeling
paint and tracks leading to ???? “Easy To Go To Heaven/ Easier Not To.”
Mennonite Church at Wheatland.

In Canton (pop. 593), Minnie Ha
Ha Creek and Pioneer Telephone Co-Op. South of Fairview: LIVING TO
PLEASE/ GOD. The Heritage Inn: Clean -- Comfortable -- Quiet. Libby’s
Hi-Way Restaurant, buffet, coffee brightener. G-I problem at roadside
table north of fairview. Take 8 North over the Cimarron River to Aline, site of the Original Sod House, built by Malcolm McCully in 1894.

Homesteaders viewed dugouts and soddies as temporary shelters,
typically lasting 3-8 years. Soddies were lighter, drier, and larger
than dugouts. Roof was the weak point, a “constant rain of dirt and
bugs.” The ceiling cloths dripped and insects, mice, and snakes hid
between the cloth and roof. Old lady at sod house taught me how to
excavate at Great Salt Basin, which I bypassed.

412 to Glass
(“Gloss”) Mountains, made of mica or Eisen glass, turn right at Orienta,
drive six miles, walk around barbed wire fence. “Heaven -- Don’t Miss
It For the World.”

This area was once the hunting domain of
Plains Indians (Apache, Kiowa, Comanche), later homesteaders, also
outlaws and desperdos like Dick Yeager. The mountains were formed by the
sea 250 millin years ago. Explorer Thomas James named them the “Shining
Mountains” in 1821, the current name dates to 1873. The “glass” is
actually selenite, a crystalline form of gypsum which is supposed to wax
and wane with the moon. Gypsum, a mineral similar to chalk, is used for
dressing soil, making plaster of Paris, etc.

Sign at overlook:
“Yet for all man’s busy activities, these mountains continue to keep
their silent watch [and] serve as a reminder of the timeless troke of
nature’s clock and our own brief passage across this land.”

Continuing west on 412, Mooreland is the home of Troy Ruttman (sp.?),
who won the Indy 500 in the early 1950s; the town’s original name was
Moorland, as in treeless. A little down the road is Woodward’s
Museum of Pioneer History. Buffalo hunters considered this a good,
“quicksand-safe” place to cross the North Canadian River. The military
road between Camp Supply, 50 miles to the north and Fort Reno, west of
OKC, ran through here. It was from Camp Supply that, in 1868, Custer
headed south for the Battle of Washita,
where Black Kettle the Cheyenne chief was killed. The site lies on what
is now a national grassland on western Oklahoma’s border with Texas.

From 1866 to 1888, some 6 million cattle were driven along the Great Western or Dodge City Trail
from Texas north to Dodge City. Then the railroads came, the Santa Fe
in 1886 followed by the Katy in 1912. Laying tracks was hampered by
drifting sands that filled up the cuts and blew out the grades. Sand is a
way of life here; eaters of ice cream cones, beware!

Once part
of the Cherokee Outlet, the area was opened to non-Indian settlement in
1893. The town’s first two babies were born in a tent and a house made
of railroad ties. A 1947 tornado killed 100 residents and destroyed 200
blocks -- half the town’s houses and businesses. Among Woodward’s
favorite sons were lawyer/gunfighter Temple Houston and Al Jennings,
train robber, evangelist, chicken rancher, and movie celebrity. Teddy
Roosevelt pardoned him for a hold-up, and Jennings later ran,
unsuccessfully, for governor. He died “with his boots off” at his home
in Tarzana, Calif.

Crossed the North Canadian and spotted a Holiday Rambler RV at Boiling Springs State Park. Driving to my campsite I saw my first (live) armadillo browsing and waddling around on the side of the road.

The park takes its name from several sandy-bottomed springs which
appeared to “boil” as they were churned with the strong inflow of
subsurface water. Current reduced flow may have to do with less water as
a result of farm irrigation.

This area offers a range of geologically diverse state parks. Little Sahara
near Waynoka features 1,867 acres of huge dunes; ironically the place
once known as the “walking hills” is now used primarily by drivers of
Off-Road Vehicles. For a more sedate experience, try Great Plains,
to the northeast, billed as “a flat expanse of sand and mud, completely
devoid of vegetation and covered by a thin layer of salt,” where you
can birdwatch or dig for selenite. Alabaster Caverns,
between Boiling Springs and Freedom, offers spelunkers a 3/4-mile-long
gypsum cave filled with millions of bats, which eat an estimated 10 tons
of insects nightly.

Ninth day:

From Boiling Springs to Guymon.

Listening to (Texas) ranch dance fiddler Frank McWhorter’s “When You
and I Were Young, Maggie” while driving north on 50 to Freedom. “The
creaking old mill is still, Maggie....”

At Alabaster Caverns,
bats on welcome sign. “Wild caving prohibited without permit.” Bats
start hibernating in October, like to leave them in peace.

Article in 1906 Moorehead Leader “The Great Bat Cave.” Also a hiding
place for outlaws like Panther Pete, the terror of Cedar Canyon, and
Bloody Jack, for whom a $15,000 reward was posted. Used to be a natural
bridge but collapsed to floor in 1992.

This cave began forming
200 million years ago. Gypsum is the first stone carved artistically by
man, various vessels were buried with King Tut, Cleopatra, and Jesus.

Headed north on 50 and crossed the Cimarron River into the town of Freedom
(pop. 250) -- “a large name for a little town” -- with street names
like Lasso Lane and Frontier Drive. Freedom was established in 1901,
originally 6 miles north (Old Freedom), moved closer to river (New
Freedom) in 1919 when Buffalo Northwestern RR built. There were ranches
here as early as 1883 when the land was still leased from the Cherokee.
The principal crossing of the Cimarron was near Freedom. The Cimarron River brought salt to the surface, then processed by Cargill Inc.’s Solar Salt Plant.

In the town park, a 9,000-pound red granite Cimarron Cowboy Monument
commemorates arrival of first cattle herds in area, arrival of the Santa
Fe RR in 1886, a killing blizzard the same year, and opening of the
Cherokee Outlet for settlement in 1893.

In American Legion
Park, a plaque erected in 1949 by the Cimarron Cowboy Association honors
folks like J.A. Dalton, who worked for the Childress Bros., and was
champion swimmer of the Cimarron (ranch on both sides); J.O. Selman,
horse wrangler and camp clown; and Jimmie Fewclothes.

Chimney Rock used to be a tourist destination but it collapsed. The Annual Freedom Rodeo & Old Cowhand Reunion, a 50-year tradition that takes place in August, is billed as the biggest open rodeo in the West.

(In McAlester, south of Tulsa, the state pen’s “behind-the-walls”
rodeo, featuring PRCA cowboys as well as inmates, is also worthwhile.)

Main Street merchants, rough red cedar wood storefronts. Great Freedom
Bank Robbery shootout on Main. Bank, open since 1919, sends someone to
open the museum for me. “We’ll have somebody down there.” The museum’s
holdings range from a mammoth tusk and petrified buffalo head to a
campfire dress, friendship quilts, and a 1927 high school letter
sweater. Also a newspaper ad for the Freedom Picnic, a three-day affair
held in September 1919: “Talk about FUN, we’ll have it! Fact is, the
People of Freedom are the ones who invented fun. Roping Contests, Riding
Contests, Base Ball and RACING OF ALL KINDS. And a Big Band of Indians,
Too.” The town was only five months old “but is the biggest little town
on the map... fast becoming the wonder town of northwestern Oklahoma.”
20 miles NW of Waynoka on the Buffalo Northwestern Railroad.

Pioneer banker and agronomist C.H. Martin once joked that he dug the
Cimarron, a Mexican-Apache word meaning “wanderer,” named after a
solitary old Apache who left his tribe to settle at its headwaters. This
tribe was famous for marauding and murdering, sometimes colluding with
outlaws; they “wandered everywhere and dwelt nowhere.” (According to
Cornonado, they lived “like Arabs”).

In the Alva Courier, I
read about a couple arrested hours before their nuptual, a case
dismissed against a man who killed two trespassing coon hunters.

The Panhandle begins at Freedom or Buffalo, depending on your definition.

I stopped at the Camp Houston Country store at 50 and 64 and asked if I could charge gas. “I don’t even know you,” the clerk replied. So much for “it’s everywhere you are.”

Heading west on 64 towards Buffalo. Daniel Boone’s son Nathan explored
this area in 1843. Got into the mood by listening to the Sons of the
Pioneers’ “Wind”: “Listen to to the wind/ Wonder what it’s sayin’.”

Buffalo
is located along the old Ft. Dodge-Camp Supply road. The Trail Museum
there was closed. Two men were painting it and blasting country music
from a boombox.

Continued west and stopped at Cimarron Junction,
pop. 2. It’s not on the map, but is located where the “mainland” meets
the Panhandle, on the border of Harper and Beaver counties; a few miles
north is Buttermilk, Kansas. The store there is run by “Smiley” (Edwin)
and Johnnie. Smiley obligingly took me on an extended tour of Eileen
Day’s ranch, which he looks after. I took pictures of her 250 longhorns
(brought by the Spaniards), but later it turned out that there was no
film in my camera! Five years ago, he told me, a grass fire consumed
250,000 acres: “The wind was blowing, and there wasn’t no way they could
stop it.”

Continuing west to Gate,
whose early post office was located where there was a gate in the
fence. Pea-green Katy depot. Went through the Gate of the Panhandle
Museum. Saw a mastadon tusk found by a local farmer while plowing his
wheatfield. In the garage was a Springfield wagon, an old wooden washing
machine, corn sheller, cider press, broom-making machine, egg
incubators, etc. Also a giant oxen yoke circa 1890s used for making sod.

An older woman was “resting her eyes” and feet when I entered. They
don’t get too many visitors, about one per week. Gate is the gateway to
the Oklahoma Panhandle, she said, as a black snake slithered across the
road.

Past Knowles, the land suddenly became flat. Listened to
“Hard Travelin’” by Woody Guthrie of Okemah, which sponsors a folk
festival in his honor in mid-July. Fifteen miles farther, 23 leads south
to Beaver, home of the Jones and Plummer Trail
Museum. The trail started in Texas and ended up in Dodge City. C.E.
Jones and Joe Plummer, both from Wisconsin, were in the Army and got
kicked out. Early settler Jim Lane built a combination store, saloon,
post office, feedyard and hotel here where the trail crosses the Beaver
River. The town is the Cow Chip Capital of the World, and sponsors a cow
chip throwing contest. In the early day dried dung was burned for fuel.
After having some honey-dipped chicken at Ned and Darlene’s Cafe, I
headed south on 23 and then west on 412, crossing into Texas County.

This is a real “nowhere road,” dead flat fields of corn and hay rolls. Don’t forget the No-Doz.

Before seeing Guymon, decided to detour 10 miles southwest to Goodwell,
home of OK Panhandle State University, where a couple of guys were
lassoing. This is the saddlebronc capital of the world. No town here,
just a store. There is, however, a No Man’s Land Museum. No Man’s Land
(aka the Neutral Strip) was at one time just that -- owned by no one. It
has changed hands many times, first controlled by Spain and then
Mexico. Law came in 1887 when the area, now comprising three counties
(Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron), was organized into the Cimarron
Territory. At the museum are 500 carvings of native Oklahoman alabaster
made by the Ducketts of Texas County during the first half of the 20th
century, and a peace pipe given to a Hooker resident by Blackfoot Chief
Two Guns Whitecalf, who was pictured on the buffalo nickel; also the
first printing press to cross the Mississippi. Nomadic hunters patrolled
this area beginning in 10,000 B.C.

Back to Guymon,
welcome sign with silhouettes of three men on horseback, orange sunset
in background. This is a big pig-farming area, as evident by the smell.

Checked into the Best Western Townsman Inn, slightly over my budget but worth it after my 8-day trek through Oklahoma.

Tenth day:

From Guyman to Eagle Nest, New Mexico.

While packing my car in the morning, a well-dressed middle-aged man
approached me and asked if I knew the way to OKC. I started to tell him
and then got a map. He started telling me about psychocybernetics
and invited me a “hot-tub party” (orgy) being held that night at the
motel. He’s a doctor based in the Sacramento area and temporarily
working at the local hospital, has some friends flying in for the party,
a couple of guys and five girls: nice, fun people, he said, and clean.
He added that I’d be required to pee into a cup to get tested. He was
articulate and friendly enough, but something about him gave me the
creeps. He wore immaculate white pants, contrasting with his brown skin
(he said he was part-Jamaican).

Later I searched the Internet
and found out that pyschocybernetics, a form of therapy based on
“self-actualization,” was invented in the sixties by plastic surgeon
Maxwell Maltz. I found no references to hot-tub parties, but there were
some quotes by Maltz, who believes that opportunity “never knocks.”
Rather, “you are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to
your destiny.” Which for me was the highway west and not the hot tub
(the wrong choice, Biff said later).

Cattle trucks rumbled
through town. The combined panhandles of OK and TX are known as the
“cattle-feeding capital of the world.” Texas County alone has better
than half a million head, including seven giant feedlots, each with a
5,000-head capacity. The biggest is Hitch Enterprises of Guymon, which
owns 153,000 cows on a ranch 15 miles SE of town. The family settled
here in 1884. Its scion, H.C. “Ladd” Hitch, died of a heart attack a few
years back while attending an annual meeting of the state cattlemen’s
association being hjeld at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma
City. He grew up in the saddle, wrangling horses and mules, riding the
range, and working in the fields. Texas County holds its Pioneer Days in
late April, attracting more than 600 contestants in the roping and
saddle bronc events.

Head west on 412. Now the road has
become completely flat on both sides of the highway. Cimarron County is
the county in the United States (out of 3,070) that borders four other
states (TX, NM, CO, and a smidgeon of KS). It has one “city” and six
“towns.” There are less than two people per square mile, and not a
single stoplight (though five highways pass through town). Boise City
is the only place in America that was bombed during the Second World
War. The plane came from an Army base in Dalhart, Texas. This happened
at 12:30 AM in July 1943. The navigator thought their B-17 was flying
over a firing range. Sheriff Harris “Hook” Powell, who lived on the top
floor of the courthouse, promptly called the base, which radioed the
pilot to return home -- pronto! Some buildings were damaged but
miraculously there were no casualties. Its crew later flew 45 combat
missions, shooting down 20 German fighters. There are several theories
about how Boise City got its name. The town is 16 miles north of Texas,
18 miles south of Colorado, and 27 miles east of New Mexico. The Santa
Fe Daze features a championship post-hole digging contest.

The
Cimarron Heritage Center offers a good overview of the Dust Bowl era.
Arthur Rothstein’s famous photograph of Black Sunday was taken in this
vicinity. The Dirty Thirties featured a climatological melange of
blizzards, tornados, floods, droughts, dirt storms, and even a
“snuster” in ’38 -- dirt and snow reaching blizzard proportions. What
had been a prosperous region in the early 1930s was struck by a record
drought from 1934 to 1936. Cattle were fed thistle and soap weed. A heat
wave in ’34 killed hundreds in the Plains states. The following April,
on “Black Sunday,” many thought that the world was coming to an end. The
temperature in Boise City dropped 74 degrees in 18 hours. That year,
there were 139 “dirty days.” This was followed by earthquakes and
extreme heat -- and floods.

South of Boise City are four
national grasslands, some of the hardest hit areas during the Dust Bowl
due to poor soil, recurrent drought and other factors. The land, shared
by Texas, is used for pastures, bird habitats, and protected watersheds.

The explorer Coronado passed through Cimarron in quest of the
Seven Cities of Cibola. Captain William Coe, an outlaw, used Robber’s
Roost as his headquarters. At Cedar Bluffs (near the ghost town of
Wheeless) lie the remains of Camp Nichols, established by Kit Carson
for the protection of travelers along the Santa Fe Trail. To the north
is Medicine Lodge, Kansas, site of the 1867 treaty between the Anglos
and Plains Indians.

Headed northwest on 325 towards Kenton, the only town in Oklahoma on Mountain Standard Time. The Santa Fe Trail runs through this area, and Autograph Rock
was once used as a resting and watering place by “those hardy creatures
who sought better lives for themselves by moving on,” including
shepherds drifting here from the N.M. Territory. Among the hundreds of
names carved into the 35-foot-high and 700-foot-long sandstone
outcropping is one written in old Castillian style: “Coronatto, 1541.”
The rock is located on Bobby Apple’s ranch, where you can stay for $25 a
night (Box 24, Kenton 73946).

This is dinosaur country, and
their tracks, made 150 million years ago, are visible in creek beds
east of town. In the thirties, several quarries yielded 18 tons worth of
bones. Five species have been found here, including one the size of a
chicken, an alligator-like phytosaurus, and the 80-foot “bronto” now
housed in the Smithsonian. One theory goes that this area, where the
eastern ocean met a shallow, brackish one, used to be hot and muggy and
that dinosaurs would “vacation” here.

The Santa Fe Trail,
originating in Franklin, Missouri, was first blazed in 1821 and
remained active for 60 years, until the railroad reached Santa Fe. It
took seven or eight weeks to make the trip. Conestoga wagons carried 2-3
tons of merchandise, delivering calico, tools, mirrors, wine, and
furniture to New Mexico, and returning east with fur, wool, and silver
coins. Among the notables who traveled this “international trade route”
between the U.S. and what was then Mexico, were Josiah Gregg, Manuel
Armijo, and Gen. Stephen Watts Kearney, in addition to a grab bag of
soldiers, military freighters, gold seekers, emigrants, adventurers,
mountain men, hunters, Indians, guides, packers, translators, invalids,
and reporters. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton notes in 1825 that the trail
“runs directly toward the setting sun.” You can still see wagon tracks
at Flag Spring.

The Cimarron River runs through northern part
of the county. Pumpkin and corn were cultivated here as early as the
time of Christ.

Black Mesa,
where the foothills of the Rockies begin and the shortgrass prairie
ends, doubles as a nature preserve and state park. The mesa itself, a
Dakota sandstone base capped with basalt, runs 45 miles into New Mexico
and Colorado (in the latter it is known as Mesa de Maya). It formed from
a lava flow some 30 million years ago, apparently originating in
Colorado’s Piney Mountains. Temperatures range from 30-below to 112 F.
At 4,972 feet, it’s the highest elevation in Oklahoma.

Had a “bronto burger” at Kenton Mercantile, piled back into the car, and crossed into New Mexico at 2 P.M.

That night I stayed in Eagle Nest, up in the Rockies, where I almost
got shot checking into a room already rented to a couple, who scrambled
for cover.

Carol Cizik

706 Ridgeway

Geronimo

248-8508

Oklahoma! filmed in Arizona

Frisco RR near Chandler??

After [Will Rogers] died in a plane crash in Alaska, Charlie Chaplin
cabled his wife Betty that “your sorrow is universal,” while Cecil B.
DeMille described him as “the American who least can be spared.”

Wewoka switch

sooners people in a hurry to get somewhere and do something

mencken cross bridge before they come to it

Gene Autry, OK -- Autry from OK?

Angie Debo’s OK Footloose and Fancy-Free

oklahombres

Stranger in a strange land

People are strange

Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp

Jesus as shepherd

Black Sunday struck on April 14, 1935

37 tribes? once 67?

the comanche: skilled horsemen and most powerful nomads on the
southwestern plains; Chief Ten Bears (speech) and Quanah Parker; tribal
office in Lawton; traveled as far as 1,000 miles south, to Bolson de
Mapimí, Chihuahua comanche remarkable for numbers, horsemanship, warlike
character; 7,000 in 1690; clashes between them and white expeditions or
bodies of emigrants; introduced horses to Indians of northern Plains

Coronado : Indians lived “like Arabs”

ned christie, cherokee outlaw

According to Smithsonian, Paleo-Indians walked from Asia to North
American, big-game hunters in OK 14,000 years ago if not well before,
Clovis spearpoints in Caddo County. Later they foraged,
becoming“centrally based” wanderers; they started farming around the
time of Christ.